AN Edinburgh business which helps golfers track their performance is targeting a breakthrough in the US market after raising £1.6 million in funding last month.

Shot Scope Technologies believes there are potentially four million customers in the US for its wearable performance tracker.

And the company, which counts two former FanDuel senior executives among its team of 20, expects to grow revenue this year to £5m, from £900,000 last year, with the launch of V2, the second incarnation of its wearable performance tracker.

The device automatically tracks a player’s performance and provides live yardage distances on the golf course, using a military-grade global positioning system (GPS).

On completion of a round, data is uploaded to a website or mobile app where statistics, analytics and maps detailing every shot are displayed.

Speaking to The Herald direct from the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Florida, chief executive and founder David Hunter said: “The minimum we’re trying to hit this year is £5m. The

absolute best we could do is £8m to £9m, but that’s a big step. We all know the £5m target is achievable but we need to be conservative.”

He added that hitting the target would be simply “scratching the surface” of what the company could achieve in the US.

“In the US there are 30 million golfers and four million are in our target market, and we are only trying to sell 20,000 [in the US].”

The company’s overall target for 2018 is to ship 30,000 to 40,000 units but Mr Hunter said following meetings in the US, and hopeful deals with the largest sports retailer in the US, and a major European distributor, he is hopeful for 50,000 to 75,000 to be sold.

To achieve that, the UK also remains a key focus.

“We need to go after the UK as aggressively as the US, but the US is the bigger opportunity,” he said. “It is an £800m opportunity for Shot Scope overall, and the UK is £125m total, so you can see why we are over here.”

A marketing plan described as “aggressive” will include TV advertising in the UK and US.

Mr Hunter, an electronic design engineer, founded the firm in 2013 after becoming frustrated at the lack of options for statistical

analysis available to club-level golfers.

The business has now raised a total of £4.5m since it launched, with investors including Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s investment arm, Scottish Investment Bank, Equity Gap and high-net-worth individuals.

This includes £1m in grant funding through Scottish Enterprise, with Mr Hunter saying the support from the group “has been unbelievable”.

V2, the second incarnation of the smart watch, launched earlier this month after a pre-sale deal shifted 4,000 units to 38 countries, with advertising in the US helping

sell 150 units in 24 hours in the country.

The company holds details on 30,000 golf course around the world, which can be downloaded by users. It has commissioned 150 contractors to map further courses.

Around 3,000 are being added to its database each month, and by the end of the year, 42,000 courses should be included.

Licensing this data to golf clubs could become a secondary revenue stream.

In addition to providing on-course yardages, by using small tags in golf clubs, the kit also provides post-round shot analysis, which has been ruled as conforming to the official rules of the game.

In April, a software update to the “performance dashboard”, the desktop and app-based platform where golfers can analyse their round, will provide more than 100 statistics. “That will be a big moment for us,” said Mr Hunter. “The type of data that the pros have been collecting is now available to the amateur golfer.”

Users, said Mr Hunter, spend 35 minutes looking at the first round they play with Shot Scope, on average, before dropping down to 17 minutes per round. “They spend a lot of time looking at the data,” he said.

The product is designed and manufactured in Scotland with a lot of components sourced locally. Current capacity is 40,000, and Mr Hunter said inevitably it would have to open an additional manufacturing site overseas to meet demand.

“Scottish companies just aren’t geared up for building 250,000 units anymore, which is a real shame,” he said.

Its board includes Fan Duel co-founder Rob Jones, who recently launched e-sports business Flick with the fantasy sport group’s former chief executive Nigel Eccles. Shot Scope has also hired Cameron Ball, who was vice president of digital marketing at Fan Duel.

The business is chaired by former Hibernian chairman Ken Lewandowski.

“It was always our vision to build a product that could be used by golfers,” said Mr Hunter.

He acknowledges that PGA Tour pros won’t use the product because they have people to track their rounds, but he said there was a huge number of secondary tours, in the men’s and women’s games, and these are being targeted. Mr Hunter said testing was underway on the LET Access Tour, the development tour of the Ladies European Tour.

“We are a company that tries to do it different, and tries to be a bit disruptive,” he said.